Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Last AKIC Weekend of the Year of the Ox or Cow or Bull

Yesterday, I snapped

I took pictures and videos yesterday, like a mad man.

Or did I? Chesterton, if I remember correctly, said something about mad men being super-sane on one point to the neglect of all other points -- that is, mad men acted on a single point out of proportion to all other points and thus they were imbalanced. He said that was what the problem with the modern world was with its belief in pacifism and no spanking and gay marriage and in being healthy in body. But that is a digression. On the question of whether or not I was mad yesterday when I took all the photos, I would have to say I wasn't because I thought at the time I was overdoing it. But there was a little madness in it when I took photos over and over again of the same thing.

Could uncertainty be a sign of madness? To be discriminating is something I have always had trouble doing. I have always felt this mad need to show every photo taken because I have never discerned properly which photos are necessary to show.

Yesterday, I took 108 photos and video of Tony, and other things around Wuxi. Prepare to be inflicted.

A little English

Every once in a while, I will meet a local who can take a limited English vocabulary and get tons of mileage out of it. Case in point, yesterday evening on the bus.

An older man, wearing a Timken hat, got on the bus, and said "hello!" to me.

"You Foreigner!", he said.

"That's right!", I replied.

"Where are you from?", he asked.

I told him.

"You Friend!", he said.

"Ah, yes!", I said.

He then asked a few question of Tony, in English. He was proud of the phrases he knew and seemed pleased for the chance to use them. Many of the students at my school, could learn from him. His English was pidginy but he never betrayed a lack of fluency -- he didn't place limits on himself as the students often seem to do.

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AKIC

I am Canadian. I have lived in Wuxi, China since September 2004. I teach English. In this blog, I recount the things I have seen and the experiences I have had here in Wuxi. I also make comments on things that strike my reactionary fancy.